


building blocks

by kiyala



Category: Brick (2005), Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Community: trope_bingo, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-07
Updated: 2013-01-07
Packaged: 2017-11-24 01:34:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/628821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiyala/pseuds/kiyala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brendan Frye dies the day he defects from the military.</p>
            </blockquote>





	building blocks

**Author's Note:**

> This is a (slightly belated) birthday present for the lovely [shorelle](http://shorelle.tumblr.com/).

It's five o'clock.

The Pin is standing on Brendan's doorstep, bruised and bleeding. It's been more than twenty four hours since the shoot-out at his den. He shouldn't be alive.

They stare at each other in silence. Brendan's mother is sound asleep.

Without a word, Brendan steps aside. The Pin shuts the door behind him with a soft click.

«·»

The Pin hides out in Brendan's room for a week.

They don't talk. Brendan's mother doesn't disturb him, doesn't seem to notice that there's another person living under her roof. When Brendan takes food to his room, she doesn't ask. The Pin doesn't thank him, but Brendan wouldn't want to hear it anyway.

«·»

Seven days later, Brendan wakes up and there's nobody else in his room.

Rolling over, he tries to get some more sleep.

«·»

"You don't know where he's gone?" Brain asks, not even trying to hide the fact that he's curious.

"No idea. Do you?"

"Kept an ear out for reports. Nothing." Brain shrugs. "He's pretty slippery, I guess."

"Yeah." Brendan shoves his hands into his jacket pockets. "I guess so."

«·»

Brendan signs up for the military. His mother's proud of him.

Brain doesn't say anything. Brendan sees him fiddling with the dog tags around his neck every now and then.

He'd never done that before. Brendan feels like he should say something before he leaves.

He doesn't.

«·»

Brendan Frye dies the day he defects from the military.

He dies a couple hundred times before that, too, hooked up to a big, bulky machine called an Assisted Dreaming Device.

He waits until they've finished fine-tuning the next generation; a portable version downsized to a sleek silver briefcase. Then he takes one and runs for it.

Brendan dies, and he becomes Arthur instead.

«·»

He attaches himself to Dominick Cobb and Mallorie Miles, because he can get further with them than he can on his own. Mal has an innate understanding of how dreaming works, and Cobb is innovative, curious to do _more_.

Arthur sticks around. He plays the third wheel, so they can feel even more in love with each other. He's the steady, silent support that they need, making them feel safe so they can explore the potential of dreams even further.

Brendan would have known better than to get emotionally attached.

But that was before Brendan drowned, and fell off buildings, and was stabbed through the chest, and was blown to pieces, and torn limb from limb.

Besides, he's Arthur now.

«·»

"What do you know about Nash?" Cobb asks.

Mal is dead. Dead like Emily. Like Brendan.

"I know that we should walk."

«·»

They don't walk. Because Cobb doesn't work that way. Not yet, anyway. He'll learn.

Arthur can hope.

«·»

The dream is…

Well, it's beautiful.

Unrealistic and too real, both at once. An abundance of sensory stimulation, every gust of wind rich with description, with story.

_You read Tolkien?_ a phantom voice asks.

Arthur shakes his head.

«·»

There's a young boy wandering through the trees. Blond. Big glasses. Dog tags around his neck. He's lost.

There's a girl lying in the grass. Face down. Blue bangles around her wrist. She's dead.

"I thought we agreed to suppress our projections," Cobb speaks up with a frown. He looks at Nash.

Nash is looking at Arthur. "They're not my projections."

He's lying.

Arthur has his gun out. He's had it out since they entered the dream.

He could shoot himself out. Instead, he shoots Nash. Lets the perfectly-constructed world fall apart around them.

«·»

Arthur refuses to work with Nash. For a long time, he gets his way.

In reality, _a long time_ only means a month.

Then again, he'd seen Mal go insane in less time than that.

«·»

Nash is unpleasant. Bitter. Arthur tries not to spend any time around him. It doesn't work.

Cobb steps out for a moment while they're planning a job and Nash looks at Arthur.

"Would've had you pegged as an extractor."

Arthur barely looks up. "Thought you'd be spending your time finding a way to put collars around all the chemists."

Nash laughs at that. "And what makes you think I'm not?"

Arthur's done his research. He knows better.

He's ready to bail the moment he hears anything about Nash managing to control the distribution of somnacin. Withdrawal be damned.

«·»

Nash fucks up.

Of course he does. His dreams are about the feel of things, making the subjects feel like they're part of a story, part of something bigger.

It doesn't hold up to close scrutiny. Not when the dreamer's trained.

Not when the dreamer is Saito, who knew he'd been dreaming from the very first moment.

«·»

_He sold you out_. Saito's words hang in the air as Arthur looks at Nash. Into his big, terrified eyes.

_Help me. Brendan, please. Please help me._

Arthur's hands ball into fists. He doesn't have to shut his eyes to picture himself in The Pin's den all over again. He remembers the way the gun had felt under his shoe. Remembers kicking it back into the room.

Arthur watches Nash get dragged away and thinks, well. Perhaps he deserved that.


End file.
